FROM PUBLISHED TO FIERCE, INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER

by Patty G. Henderson, February 10th, 2010

I must admit to loving the phrase “fiercely independent publisher.” What does it mean? In today’s volatile publishing universe, certain aspects of publishing have come under fire and persecution. The term “self-published” has most often meant “book killer” and the author shunned and eliminated from many avenues open to contracted authors. A shame, I know. But change is in the wind.

I chose to become a fiercely independent publisher. I chose the path to independent publishing. Because I hope that what I have to say about independent publishing will help any new lesbian author in her quest to publication and what might be right for her, I am going to attempt to keep this short and succinct and hopefully not put you to sleep. Choosing to publish on my own, with my own imprint, is one of the most exciting things that could have happened to me and I feel all lesbian authors should have the opportunity to explore that option before signing with the wrong publisher.

I wasn’t cut from a contract. I requested to be released from my contract to Bella Books. They were my last publisher. But I digress. In early 2000, I had just finished my first book, the vampire romantic adventure, SO DEAD, MY LOVE. With vampire dreams in hand, I approached Justice House Publishing. They, in turn, proceeded to make shambles of my contract and those of all their other authors as well. No royalties. No contact. They wouldn’t respond to phone calls or emails. Justice House Publishing finally filed bankruptcy and then went into hiding. Beware of the contract you are signing. At least my contract with Justice House had a date and year when my rights finally reverted back to me. Some don’t. I got lucky and didn’t have to wait for my rights. When Justice House went bankrupt, I was able to get my rights back and have published a revised version of SO DEAD, MY LOVE, Author’s Choice Edition.

THE BURNING OF HER SIN was the first Brenda Strange book. I was shopping it vigorously until a brand new publisher named Barclay Books hit the scene and began making a big splash within the horror community. Their authors and books got good press in the big horror magazines. And the best news was that Barclay was local. I submitted the book and was offered a contract that seemed good. I signed. Since they were local, I was able to have frequent conversations with the publisher. Unfortunately, the bright future that Barclay Books seemed to have had faded quickly. Too late, I found that the publisher was the wife of a local doctor searching for something to keep her busy. She thought publishing could be it. If it hadn’t hurt so much, that would sound funny, right? In my promise to keep this short, the deal turned out miserably. No marketing. No promotion. No royalties….again. The only way I could get my book rights back was to buy them back. The publisher agreed I should pay her money (in the thousands) and she would release my rights… and the boxes and boxes of books still stored in a local warehouse.

So, with a laundry room filled with boxes of THE BURNING OF HER SIN, I had written a second book in the Brenda Strange series, TANGLED AND DARK. Again, to keep it short, after shopping the book to some publishers and some agents, including Bella Books, I got a phone call from Linda Hill. She wanted TANGLED AND DARK. She called within a day of me getting an offer for the book from Palari Press. The Bella Books offer was better and it was a strictly lesbian press, a big and well-known one, so I took it. Bella Books published TANGLED AND DARK and the third Brenda Strange book, THE MISSING PAGE. They also got the rights to my first BS book, THE BURNING OF HER SIN. After THE MISSING PAGE and conversations with Linda Hill regarding the future of my Brenda Strange series, Bella was no longer interested in publishing any further Brenda Strange books. It was then I decided that Bella Books was not the publisher willing to give my books the support and promotion that I felt they deserved. As the author, I felt that I wanted to write more Brenda Strange books. I am far from finished with the series. If Bella Books wanted no part of them, I opted out of my contract. Trouble was, they owned the complete rights to all the first three Brenda Strange books. Oh, and there was no date in the contract for reversal of rights back to me. Bella Books forever owns my rights to the first three Brenda Strange books. As an author, you like to have the rights to your books. Again, remember, read your contracts.

And now, at a full circle, I have chosen to be my own, fiercely independent publisher. Can you wonder why? Each and every publisher will take as many rights from you as you will allow them. Most contracts want big chunks of e-Books rights and other rights. And I have to ask, in this day and age of Print-On-Demand publishing, why choose to give those up when you can be your own publisher? In the lesbian fiction niche, most of the publishers are actually publishing their books using the exact method you can use on your own. Why give away your creation to a publisher when you can keep all your rights and all your profits? If you research, you can find that the one-woman or two-woman operations now publishing lesbian fiction are using POD. So can you. Also, if you check deeply, you will find that some of these publishers offer little or no promotion or marketing. They depend on you to do it. Why should you give them your rights for using their name as the publisher when you can be your own?

Cost, you ask? How hard is it, you want to know? It all depends. There are several ways you can become your own fiercely independent publisher. You can open an account at Lightning Source Inc. Every lesbian publisher who uses POD has an account here. If you don’t want to publish other authors and just want to publish your own works, I’m going to recommend Lulu.com. First, please be aware of the term “fiercely independent.” You must be passionate and very independent because you will be doing all of it yourself. Book preparation. Book cover and interior book conversion. That isn’t as hard as it sounds. The steps are all self-explanatory and Lulu has one of the best self-help web sites anywhere. You want your book to compete with any other book in the market. You will need good editing. If you don’t have the money to hire a good editor, rely on dependable beta readers or other professional authors to help in the editing. Most of the small, micro lesbian presses have their authors do their editing, so you’ll be in good company using other authors or beta readers. You will also need to download a template, provided free at Lulu, to convert your Word manuscript to book format. You should be patient with this process. Once you get it done, it will be a cake-walk for your future books. Remember that proper page numbering and page set-ups are important for the overall look of your book. If you need help, don’t be shy and ask other independent publishers. I am always ready to help out a fellow author. Plus, Lulu has one of the best Help Forums around. Your questions are answered promptly. The second most important thing after a fine looking interior is an eye-catching, professional-looking cover. If you cut corners here and go with a sub-par book cover, your book will suffer. Get a nice cover. Again, Lulu actually offers lots of neat covers for free and also templates for you to get your book cover done. They have different sizes for trade paper. They recommend 6x9 if you’re going for the International Distribution package. You’ll need to follow their templates to get a professional looking cover. Of course, you can also hire a cover designer….one that will do a professional cover for half the price….I’m available.

What I like about Lulu is that it literally costs you nothing if you do it yourself. You will need to purchase one preview copy so you can proof the book. You set the price, according to how much profit you wish to make. You don’t need to let a publisher take most of your money and share a tiny chunk with you, the creator. Also, Lulu will list your books on Amazon and other online retailers for you. If you opt to have Lulu as your publisher on record, they will list your book on Amazon.com within weeks of finished product for FREE. They provide their own ISBN number. Keep in mind, though, that you will not be your own publisher, Lulu will be your publisher. However, for those of us who wish to be our own fiercely independent publisher, with our publishing company and want international distribution and online availability in addition to Amazon, you can purchase your own ISBN number (every book listed for purchase needs one of these) and your own Barcode (you need this for the scanners at bookstores) registered under your imprint name. You can purchase single ISBN numbers for about $125 and the barcodes for free. You must then purchase the International Distribution package from Lulu ($75). Lulu will then become your distributor, while you are the publisher. They provide you with online histories of your sales and royalties and shipments. For me, the beauty of Lulu and why I chose to print with them is because they have so many options. You can literally publish 100% free, by choosing not get a distribution package or your own ISBN number barcode and having Lulu as the publisher. No cost whatsoever to you as an author and a listing at Amazon.com.

So, it isn’t the easiest path an author might take, but it sure is liberating and fun. And you keep all your own profits. Is it tough? Yes, it can be, especially when you are initially learning how to set-up your book and cover creation. Is it rewarding? Without a doubt, yes. The publishing business model is changing. Gone are the days when authors had no Internet exposure and depended on their books getting reviewed by local newspapers or uppity magazines. The independent publisher was shunned then. But the Internet has opened the doors and the blinds and the sun is brightly shining. It no longer matters whether your book was published by a so-called “publisher” or if you are the publisher. Becoming a fiercely independent publisher is now a very viable alternative to aspiring authors. I must add that if you are a new author, publishing your own work might require more work to get your name and books to the attention of the potential reader, but this shouldn’t be the one thing that might stop you. The lesfic community is a small and passionate one. There are many avenues open to you to spread the word about your book. You are pretty much on the same footing as half the other lesfic publishers out there. The only plus getting contracted by the bigger, traditional lesbian presses like Bella or BSB, is that they can get books into bookstores. Bookstores aren’t keen yet on accepting POD books. So you see, all the other lesbian presses who use POD to publish, can offer you nothing more than what you can do on your own. They can’t get into the bookstores either. Keep in mind the changing publishing scene. Soon, the bookstores will not be a selling point for choosing what you want out of publication. Bookstores may no longer be the big players in book sales. The Internet is poised to become the way to sell books, paper and digital e-Books. As a fiercely independent publisher, you might be swimming in the same big pond as the biggest of the lesbian publishers!

Update 5/29/10:

Since this article was written, Bella Book has returned my full rights to The Burning of her Sin, Tangled and Dark, and The Missing Page.